Today marks three weeks since we arrived back in the United States.
With each passing day the World Race fades more and more into my past. Whenever
it comes up in conversation I find myself using language such as “once upon a
time” and “in a land far, far away…” as if I’m telling an old fairy tale rather
than talking about something that happened less than a month ago. Time is a
funny thing.
This past week was the first week I was home, and it was
mostly a blur of applying for a job, getting a car, finding a cell phone plan,
dropping my computer off to get fixed, and moving some of my stuff over to my
new abode. All these strange things I haven’t had to deal with for the last
year of my life.
Fortunately, after a few days I was able to get away from it
all – this weekend I went on a camping trip with my church. I used most of my
World Race gear, which was fun. When I was lying in my tent at night I
remembered that the last time I was in it – Tanzania, when we were staying with
the Maasai people. That was four months ago, but it really feels like a
lifetime ago.
The group I was camping with consisted of a handful of
people I already knew and a few new faces. We stayed up at night around the
fire and discussed what we had learned from that day’s teaching. We shared
possessions with each other and helped each other out. We walked to the main
sessions together. We slept next to each other. We ate meals together. We
laughed. We loved.
It was incredibly refreshing, and it made me realize how
much I miss living in community. We received a packet that described various
seminars we could choose to attend, and one of them was called Going Deeper in your Community. Under
the description it read, “Christian community should have the look of the
Kingdom that is to come. That means two very real things for us here and now 1)
it will be hard, and 2) it will be amazing.” When I read this I thought about
the World Race, and I found myself nodding my head vigorously at the first
point (it was freaking hard), and then just as hard when I read the second
point (but also unbelievably amazing).
I thought about the hard times – how at least one of us
always seemed to be sick, how we would sometimes snap at each other, how we had
such a variety of sleeping and eating habits that often caused tension; I
thought about those long nights in Turkey when we would spend hours trying to
work through our issues; I remembered when we got into an argument before
morning prayer in the Philippines… there were so many times when I just wanted
to get away from everyone, and I know they felt the same way too.
But I also remembered the good
times – that day we fasted together in Kenya and broke it in the evening with
communion (which consisted of chapatti and pineapple concentrate), the nights
in Israel when we piled mattresses into a room and cuddled together as we
watched movies, the day in Africa when we girls secretly collaborated and
combined a chunk of our own money to give our guys the opportunity to eat at
Carnivore (an expensive restaurant that serves ostrich and crocodile and
antelope meat, or something), and when our guys surprised us by making us
breakfast one morning in Cambodia. We played hard together – that day we frolicked
under the waterfalls, or when we ran around the sacred temples, or when danced
our hearts out to “Don’t Stop Believing.” Making our team video was a load of
fun. We also worked hard together – like when we made the textbook for the
English class, when we put on the David and Goliath skit for the kids (again
and again and again…), or when we were in charge of leading a church service.
We pushed each other in our passions and giftings, we challenged each other in
our weaknesses, we rejoiced together and we cried for one another. It was
amazing indeed.
This weekend I was reminded what
it was like to be in that kind of community. We were together less than 48
hours, but that didn’t matter – by the end we felt like we belonged together.
With each day that I spent last
week doing something for myself – applying for a job, getting a car, a phone,
etcetera – I slowly began to experience dissatisfaction. “I feel the loss of
not being a part of something bigger than myself,” I wrote in my diary one
night. It was exciting to drive around by myself and be able to call whomever I
wanted and do whatever I please – but it’s so easy. When I was on the World
Race I was being challenged to the core of my being – because I was living in
nonstop community every aspect of myself was in the limelight, and people
called me out on my faults. That was hard. But again, amazing.
While I must continue to grieve
the loss of my World Race community (and the loss of my camping group from this
past weekend, ha!), I also have an exciting community to look forward to. I’m
in the process of moving from my parent’s house in the suburbs to live with my
sister, her husband and his sister in an adorable house on the East side of Columbus. It’s kind of
crazy…a few years ago my sister Grace moved to be a missionary in Tanzania, where
she met her husband, William. They lived in Dar for a while, but then moved to
the States while I was still on the World Race. It ended up that my team stayed
with William’s parents in Dar, and I was able to meet his sister, Becca. Little
did we know that we would be living together just a few months later. Life,
like time, is a funny thing.
The four of us plan to have
dinner together most nights, and we are already on the same cell phone plan. We
are looking into joining a gym together (again, on a family plan), and I’m sure
we’ll have lots of movie nights and game nights and maybe I’ll even incorporate
feedback every night, lol. In addition to having lots of fun together, I hope
that we will push each other to become better people – to become more like
Christ. I know it won’t be the same as my World Race team (because I’ll actually have my own bedroom to run away to…), but it will be good.
Amazing, even.
So that’s what’s coming up. A new
community, a new season of life. I’m pretty excited about it. Oh and I’m
getting a bike, so that will be nice.
